Easy goes exploring

How many times have you felt like you really wanted to do something, but could never push yourself to take the step? 'Oh, it's too hard' or 'I'm afraid to hurt someone else's feelings' are some common excuses we come up for ourselves. I understand, I do that all the time. It's easy to confine ourselves to the bubble which we are already so familiar with. Yet, how often do we take the proactive step to pop the bubble? It's certainly scary. We've been taught to always have a plan, to be considerate of others' feelings, and to not embarrass ourselves. In the highly judgemental society we live in, almost everyone's afraid of being judged in one way or another. Not just for our external appearance, but the things we do too. The truth is, we all are probably being judged when we're out in public. But should we really care so much about what others think? A couple of months ago, I watched Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain , a fantastically w...

Read the previous post first! Thanks for reading my last post, and the great feedback many of you gave me. It gives me a little bit of motivation to keep writing, however sporadically. I know I didn't expound on a lot of terms in the last post - what 'reminders of mortality' and 'spiritually nourishing' really mean to me. But it was an intentional choice that quite reflected my state of mind at the point of writing (something that I find myself leaning towards more and more). To keep the writing true to myself, I actually prefer writing posts in a single sitting. I often find it difficult to continue a draft after some time; in fact, I have 8 drafts currently, some of which I haven't added a new word in over 6 months (hopefully I eventually get to them!). Inspiration is a tricky thing. Anyway, I digress.  So let's fill you in with more context here: over the Chinese New Year celebrations here in SG, one of my aunts had such severe knee pain (cartilage wearin...

I've been wanting to write about my travels for a while. But I've never found the motivation to. In fact I've been trying to write this piece for a few months now, but have not been pleased with it (inner perfectonist oops). The times when I did actually try to set up a new travel blog using wordpress, I got pissed off at its user interface (cos I hadn't paid at that point, it refused to let me use the theme I wanted! annoying!). Anyway I finally figured out how to make the pages with multiple posts on Blogger (took me long enough lol), so I'll be recounting most of my travels during my 3 years adventure as a university student in London. I'll definitely cover London at some point, but for now I'm going to focusing on my trips (at least 1 night) outside London. I'll do it the most boring way possible - chronologically. Call me out for that, but it's convenient for me to relive my experiences through my gallery too. Anyway, here we go: first stop, the...

I've never really thought that I would be having to use the disabled toilet or be pushed around in a wheelchair. It was a really strange experience; at least I'm much better now. Anyway, so I tore my ACL during a judo trial class. A really dumb reason to be honest. Especially since it's my first time doing judo. But that's for another day. This post is just some random thoughts about my 2 months being an injured person...   Spot the swollen knee. 5 days post injury. Let's first make some things clear: I still don't know my full diagnosis. The doctor's appointment is next week (really slow, I know). I've done my MRI, and the physiotherapist has looked at the results, and said I apparently still have a few (puny) strands of ligament left in where's supposed to be thousands of ACL fibre. Not sure if that's really good news. But the silver lining is that I didn't actually tear my meniscus. So there's a possibility that I wouldn't need su...

While I was in the UK, I met so many film-loving friends, got to watch so many movies that I never knew existed, and even became an extra in a friend's directorial debut (I'm keeping bragging rights Pedro for the day you make it big!). But one thing I never got to do in the UK was to watch a film alone. Why not? I was a broke student lol. Anyway so when I got the chance to in Singapore, I've been watching loads of films, many of them alone. Partially because my taste in movies have evolved, often to more niche, arthouse films that many of my Singaporean friends haven't acquired the taste for. But there is still a great selection of films on show in Singaporean cinemas, especially The Projector (love it). So, what's the best thing to do? Just watch films alone. A movie is in itself already a highly personal experience. You won't be yapping away to your friends (if you do, please shut up the next time you are in a cinema, thanks). The auditory and visual experienc...

  The Cologne Cathedral I'm writing this post from a rather fancy hostel in Maastricht (south of the Netherlands, right at the border with Belgium)! From March 2022 till now, I've been fortunate enough to travel to 13 different towns/cities in Europe: Peak District (UK), Lisboa (Portugal), Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Marseille (France), Edinburgh (Scotland), Iceland, Riga (Latvia), Mallorca (Spain), Dublin (Ireland), Brussels, Li è ge (Belgium), Cologne (Germany) and now Maastricht! In all of them except Mallorca (which was a field trip paid by my university) and Marseille, I stayed in hostels and got to meet people from an incredibly diverse range of backgrounds! I thought it would be nice to share some of my experiences for any of you guys who are considering backpacking: first, basic hostel tips and second, what I have learnt from these experiences. Let's start with the basic hostel tips: 1) Choose a highly rated hostel (HostelWorld is your best friend) Hostels aren...

Yesterday I did my first ever full day fast! It was actually longer than 24 hours because I finished dinner around 10pm on Monday and only ate breakfast this morning around 9am. Anyway, I'm sure you guys are curious as to why I chose to fast: 1) I have been eating wayyyyy too much since winter and especially over Christmas and CNY. Just felt like my body needs a bit of a break from food. 2) I was inspired by my friend who fasts 3 days every 6 months 👀. That's pretty damn insane.  I was not crazy enough to attempt to do a 72-hour fast so just 1 day was enough :) It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, maybe that's a sign that I have really been well fed recently? So once you stop eating for around 8 hours your body starts burning fat (ketosis) instead of carbs and any glycogen stores. Accompanying this is a whole host of other benefits such as removing toxins. If you're interested just do quick googling and read up widely (just make sure you don't a...

    First night in our cozy room   During these COVID times where we all itch to travel but are confined in Singapore, where better to have a staycation than in the 'rural countryside' of Lim Chu Kang? So, together with two of my friends, we stayed at Oasis Living Lab for 9 days (thankfully, with a weekend break at home). While we're nowhere near professional urban farmers, there are definitely many lessons we learnt from this short journey. So here's my take on urban farming in Singapore and why we should all start farming, or at least grow some veggies:   1) Farming connects the grower back to nature's roots Honestly, I can't remember the last time I touched soil before staying at the farm. Despite my parents growing a plethora of plants in my backyard, I rarely got involved. My life revolved too much around the Internet (which I'm certain applies to most of you too) and I looked at environmental issues through the lens of a pragmatic Singaporean: I care ...